Gigabyte A75M-UD2H Mainstream FM1 Motherboard

As the first A75 chipset board we've tested, we can't say with any degree of certainty that the Gigabyte A75M-UD2H offers a better or worse experience than its competitors. That being said it has all the hallmarks of the great value-oriented mainboards that Gigabyte has been known to produce. Though priced at only US$100 it offers more than any of the microATX FM1 boards released thus far.

The A75 chipset blesses the A75M-UD2H with SATA 6 Gbps, a very fast native USB 3.0 controller, and Dual Graphics support. Gigabyte filled the rest of the cupboard with an all solid-state capacitor design, eSATA, FireWire, and even a DisplayPort; only WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity would've made it a more complete package. Though the A8-3850 is not very energy efficient on load, the FCH and VRM heatsinks provide a good level of cooling. As the CPU and GPU reside on the same die, overclocking may be limited compared to AM3, but if the potential is there, the BIOS can unlock it as it offers an excellent range of voltage and frequency control.

Our only real complaint is with regards to fan control. The board supports fan control for both 4-pin and 3-pin fans but the BIOS has no customization options, and only CPU fan's behavior can be altered in Gigabyte's EasyTune utility. The System fan runs at a constant 60% speed regardless of temperature. For Windows users this isn't a huge deal as SpeedFan can be used to take over and implement full control on both fan headers. However at this point of the game we expect more than rudimentary stock control.

Fan control aside, we feel the Gigabyte A75M-UD2H provides almost everything one would want in a mainstream motherboard without breaking the bank. In this regard it follows the same philosophy behind AMD's new line of APUs, a completely integrated experience with decent performance at a reasonable price.